World champion visits Philadelphia. Sportingly agrees to a match with a local star. Gets clocked.

It sounds like the plot of a “Rocky” movie, but I discovered Sylvester Stallone’s screenplay eerily prefigured while perusing some 140-year-old chess columns from the Baltimore Sunday News.

Last month, I made my first pilgrimage to the Cleveland Public Library to browse the world-renowned John G. White Chess and Checkers Collection, an astounding compilation of chess books, historical records, memorabilia and equipment hard by the banks of Lake Erie.

A bucket-list item for any serious acolyte of Caissa (you just start talking this way when you read enough 19th century chess literature), the collection begun by local attorney John G. White now includes over 32,000 volumes and bound periodicals dating from the very origins of the game.

Librarian Kelly Ross Brown kindly pulled out some of the collection’s archives of Washington and Baltimore area chess columns from the 1850s through the 1990s, supplying enough raw material for a half-dozen more columns to come.

It was the Dec. 9, 1883, Baltimore column by C.E. Dennis that recounted the first visit to Philadelphia by then-reigning Austrian world champion Wilhelm Steinitz, who had moved from Europe to New York earlier in the year. Steinitz reportedly played (and won) a lot of casual games against the locals, but was put on the canvas by local competitor J.A. Kaiser.

“A serious illness of our nearest and dearest relative has prevented us from examining these games critically, and devoting the usual amount of time to the preparation of our chess column,” Dennis wrote in his column that week. We’re happy to pinch-hit.

Steinitz helped develop many of the principles of modern chess, and was famous for accepting cramped and ugly positions in pursuit of his positional goals. He’s in a trademark crouch in this Ruy Lopez after 12. Ne2 Nc8 13. Be3 Be7 14. 0-0 0-0 15. Nf4, but might have done better to slow down White’s initiative with 15…bxc4 16. Bxc4 Bxc4 17. Qxc4 Bf6 18. Nh5 Bxb2 19. Rab1 Be5 20. f4 d5, with a defensible game.

In his column just a week later, Dennis recounts another David vs. Goliath battle, this one between local Baltimore champ Alexander Sellman (still one of the strongest players Charm City ever produced) and Polish grandmaster Johannes Zukertort. Zukertort was Steinitz greatest rival, losing two epic title matches to the Austrian. Like Steinitz, Zukertort won most of his games from the locals, but Sellman outplays him here.

Zukertort as White adopts a surprisingly modern handling of the Colle System (the 5. b3 line is now known as the Colle-Zukertort variation), temporarily sacrificing a pawn after the provocative 13. e4 Nxd4!? (probably the liveliest of the many ways Black could have taken to resolve the central tension) 14. Nxd4 cxd4 15. cxd5 Rxc1 16. Rxc1 exd5 17. e5, and Black’s doubled central pawns are as much a target as an advantage.